Thursday, June 8, 2017

Thursday Morning Hot Links

What with me not having to be somewhere at 7am for the next few weeks, you'll notice the Hot Links will be published a little later. I appreciate your reading habits, but I ain't waking up at 4:45am if'n I don't have to.

*So this is less than ideal, though more from a bullpen usage standpoint than any referendum about the 2017 Astros. The Astros lost to the Royals 7-5 after Dallas Keuchel was a late scratch. All seven of the Royals' runs were scored with two outs.

*So that means that Dayan Diaz had about a 15-minute heads-up that he would be starting last night, and it was a bullpen game. The Royals scored in the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th. Bullpen usage last night:
Diaz: 2.2IP, 4H/3ER, 3K:0BB
Sipp: 1IP, 3H/2ER, 1K:0BB
Feliz: 1.1IP, 2H/2ER, 3K:2BB
Gregerson: 2IP, 2H/0ER, 3K:0BB
Giles: 1IP, 0H/0ER, 0K:0BB

*The Astros' bullpen has now thrown 200.2IP, most in the AL and only trailing the Dodgers in all of MLB. This is a concern. Though if we break down how those 200.2IP have been distributed, 32IP have been thrown by Tony Sipp, Jandel Gustave, Ashur Tolliver, Jordan Jankowski, Reymin Guduan, and Dayan Diaz (his innings last night didn't count towards this total, because he started). The main bullpen core of Giles, Harris, Devenski, Gregerson, Devenski have thrown a combined 107.2IP. Harris, Giles, and Gregerson have thrown 24 or 24.1IP each. Devenski has thrown 35IP. While Hinch has managed those five's IPs, the Astros are going to need to establish some other relievers capable of coming in and getting outs - hence the shuttle between Fresno and wherever Houston is playing.

*Hinch:It's hard. You've got to get nine innings of outs and sometimes a lot of those come out of your rotation, and sometimes they come out of your bullpen and it usually cycles. There's also times where I'm trying to get guys from the bullpen into the game because they haven't pitched that much.

*Brian McCann had his first 4-hit game since September 2016, but he wasn't pleased with his pitch-calling:I felt like I didn't do a good job tonight calling a game. I felt like I could have gone a couple of different directions, and I should have. I'm going to be thinking about some pitches I called tonight, going back to the hotel.

1 comment:

Wallee Wright
said...

Before anyone gets too exercised over the apparent inability to defeat Central Division teams consider who started the nine losing efforts: versus Cleveland it was Morton, Fiers twice, Musgrove and McCullers; and, versus Kansas City it was Fiers, Keuchel (he left with the lead), Paulino and Diaz. The Central Division teams have simply enjoyed the luck of the draw ... timing is everything.

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